UK demands Apple break encryption to allow gov’t spying worldwide, reports say

Apple last year opposed UK's secret notices demanding encryption backdoors.

See full article...

 

[TylerH]

Hopefully Apple threatens publicly to leave the UK entirely if this does not get snuffed. Wait until tens of millions of Brits are angry that they can't get Apple products anymore, not to mention the half a million or so people employed by Apple lose their jobs because of this farce.

 

[johnlsenchak]

Why is this so shocking? The NSA has had these capabilities for years now under section 702.

 

[rjd185]

It’s a common mistake that people think that Labour is more liberal than the Conservatives. This is absolutely not true and historically they’ve been as authoritarian as the Tories, if not more so.

The latest update to this god-awful legislation passed in the last months (weeks) of the last Conservative government. It really needs to be repealed or seriously watered down. This demand to Apple is being reported as having come from the security services. We can only hope this elevated publicity generates some pressure to unwind some appalling legislative over-reach.

On the flip side, we still unfortunately have some children’s charities running a heavy ‘think of the children’ campaign to support the action.

 

[jesse1]

its t

It’s a common mistake that people think that Labour is more liberal than the Conservatives. This is absolutely not true and historically they’ve been as authoritarian as the Tories, if not more so.

Its the same in the US both parties see Patriot Act renewals.

 

[Onabeach]

Apple has to follow the laws in the countries where they operate. They can choose the countries in which they operate, but leaving a major market would be a very hard decision to justify to shareholders. The best way to justify it would be if other, larger, countries pass laws that require Apple NOT share their citizens' data with the UK government. Then Apple would have to choose which market to let go, and they would most likely choose to let go of the smaller market.

Ideally voters would hold their elected representatives accountable and pressure them to not pass these kinds of laws. But voters in many countries are repeatedly dropping the ball and making obviously bad choices, which further erodes confidence in democracy.

I believe in democracy, but we need to figure out a better implementation. The path to a better implementation is far from clear, though.

Yes, lets not forget the shareholders!

 

[jesse1]

Why is this so shocking? The NSA has had these capabilities for years now under section 702.

"Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, allows the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign nationals living outside the U.S. without needing to obtain a warrant. It has become increasingly controversial over the years."

Am I the only tired of the cynicism that isnt even based on reality. Section 702 makes no such requirement about decryption.

 

[ggg5]

I wonder how much this sort of stuff is actually driving people towards Chinese tech services. Not to say they wouldn't paw through all your stuff, but at least they wouldn't be cooperating with your local spook agency.

 

[Voxera]

Apple has to follow the laws in the countries where they operate. They can choose the countries in which they operate, but leaving a major market would be a very hard decision to justify to shareholders. The best way to justify it would be if other, larger, countries pass laws that require Apple NOT share their citizens' data with the UK government. Then Apple would have to choose which market to let go, and they would most likely choose to let go of the smaller market.

Ideally voters would hold their elected representatives accountable and pressure them to not pass these kinds of laws. But voters in many countries are repeatedly dropping the ball and making obviously bad choices, which further erodes confidence in democracy.

I believe in democracy, but we need to figure out a better implementation. The path to a better implementation is far from clear, though.

But allowing the UK unrestricted access to EU citizens data would violate EU law and that could cost them 20 % of their gross operating turnover so how can the UK morons think they are entitled to the whole worlds users of iphone?

If they at least asked for UK citizens, but all apple users, that's insane beyond comprehension.

Not only would it violate EU law, it would probably violate US law as well and shortly after China would require the same all world access citing UK law as example, how would that improve UK security?

 

[Lord Bayaz]

How f***king dare you. We are a medium-sized pissant island and I'll have you know we used to run the most brutally racist empire in the world (but of course we don't mention that in our history classes).

Ha actually I love London. Best opera house. It just pisses me off when any country arbitrarily decides to invade my privacy.

 

[johnlsenchak]

" foreign nationals living outside the U.S. "

A Foreign nationals who may or may not have contact hops within the United States so the governemnt vacuums up everyone's data information daily in case down the road a person of interest become a terrorist against the American people.

 

[ewelch]

Apple and their competitors should have a pilot program to test these requests for backdoors.

They should start with Trump and his cronies and the idiots in the UK who are asking for this. Put back doors on their phones and computers first, and see how that goes.

 

[ewelch]

But fine with it when Biden does it. Ffs.

You can't possible by that ill-informed.

 

[Derecho Imminent]

A Foreign nationals who may or may not have contact hops within the United States so the governemnt vacuums up everyone's data information daily in case down the road a person of interest become a terrorist against the American people.

That still doesnt support your implication that 702 requires decryption.

Why is this so shocking? The NSA has had these capabilities for years now under section 702.

 

[BananaWarrior]

Fuck off UK with your disgusting policies.

 

[pseudobscura]

Also, this is why we cannot have nice things…

Actually, this is why we make and run our own nice things. Run your own FOSS cloud server, and you can ensure there are no backdoors.

 

[NinjaNerd56]

Days like this make me think I am a future Dateline story;”old guy with a shotgun”

 

[HankLeStank]

The BBC said it spoke to sources about the order issued to Apple, writing that "the government notice does not mean the authorities are suddenly going to start combing through everybody's data. It is believed that the government would want to access this data if there were a risk to national security—in other words, it would be targeting an individual, rather than using it for mass surveillance."

Oh well that’s reassuring.
I’m sure they won’t immediately abuse that power and access everyone’s data without reason or cause.
And as we all know, only one government is allowed to use the backdoor at a time!
Encryption can only be broken by the good guys, and only when they really really need it.

 

[NeverTheKraken]

Also everyone in the UK establishment is an Arts grad so trying to explain to them that encryption only needs to be broken once is like trying to explain Confucian philosophy to a cat.

I'm an Arts graduate with postgrad studies in law and national security and I understand encryption pretty well thanks.

Something I've encountered a lot in my career is people with technical domain skill sets - whether that be ICT, law, military, engineering, etc. - can fall into a bad habit of viewing every single problem and their solutions narrowly through the pure prism of their specialist domain. It's the 'I was taught about hammers so everything is a nail" rather then maybe I should ask someone about screwdrivers this time around? Arts degrees aren't perfect but they do teach you how to critically analyse problems from different perspectives.

This UK law does seem really shortsighted.

 

[audincli9]

But allowing the UK unrestricted access to EU citizens data would violate EU law and that could cost them 20 % of their gross operating turnover so how can the UK morons think they are entitled to the whole worlds users of iphone?

If they at least asked for UK citizens, but all apple users, that's insane beyond comprehension.

Not only would it violate EU law, it would probably violate US law as well and shortly after China would require the same all world access citing UK law as example, how would that improve UK security?

There is a strategy here, ask for way more than you need to get the one thing that you want. The request is clearly a distraction that will get whittled down to a specific item behind closed doors, probably not in the favor of UK citizens.

 

[Lithios]

There is a strategy here, ask for way more than you need to get the one thing that you want. The request is clearly a distraction that will get whittled down to a specific item behind closed doors, probably not in the favor of UK citizens.

how...trump like.

 

[squid_whisperer]

The UK already has too much surveillance for a liberal democracy. This is definitely a step in the wrong direction.

 

[khumak50]

Security is only as good as the weakest link. Any kind of backdoor access for the government or law enforcement, etc is guaranteed to be exploited by criminals as well. All you're doing is making security bad for everyone.

 

[david newall]

computer says no

 

[crepuscularbrolly]

Time to think of getting a burner phone and associated burner account for trips to the UK.

 

[crepuscularbrolly]

Gods, those three words are doing some legwork! I feel so reassured now

Also a passive voice weasel, in the vein of "the officer's gun discharged". Who's doing the believing?

 

[crepuscularbrolly]

BTW, the UK Royal Mint is issuing George Orwell commemorative coins:

https://www.royalmint.com/shop/limited-editions/george-orwell/

 

[Tursiops Amicus]

This is what demand all government agencies when they are too lazy to do hard work or want do excuse themselves for not doing their work properly.

 

[Cloudgazer]

But allowing the UK unrestricted access to EU citizens data would violate EU law and that could cost them 20 % of their gross operating turnover so how can the UK morons think they are entitled to the whole worlds users of iphone?

GDPR doesn't cover any of this, it doesn't protect EU citizens from data disclosure to foreign governments. It does protect against data transfers to foreign countries that are considered GDPR-inadequate, but the UK has been ruled GDPR-adequate

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisation...ata-protection-and-the-eu-in-detail/adequacy/

If they at least asked for UK citizens, but all apple users, that's insane beyond comprehension.

Not only would it violate EU law, it would probably violate US law as well and shortly after China would require the same all world access citing UK law as example, how would that improve UK security?

Not sure what US law you think it would violate. HIPAA?

It would violate Chinese law, but the UK can't get the China data no matter how it huffs and puffs because China insisted on data residency and a company other than Apple controlling the keys.

 

[EgoX]

Look guys. None of you leave the house anymore so security cameras are no longer fit for purpose. We're going to need access to your phones.

 

[Lwio]

UKs password for the back door: PassWord001!

 

[Bzored]

Louis Rossmanns insane guide is looking a little less insane now, I feel this is only a matter of time thing before everyone else follows.

 

[The Taxpayer]

Absolutely disturbing that the United Kingdom Government, thinks it has the right to secretly demand all data of a non UK citizen to a foreign company, without independent due process, transparency or legitimacy.

Clearly politicians think they are above morals, ethics and common sense, all in name of “National Security”.

They want to copy the worst dictatorships in the World and in History.

I’m becoming more and more libertarian by the day.

The State, under the rule of trash politicians, like those currently in power, is becoming an evil machine of mass control and repression.

The age of Democratic Liberalism seams to be ending.

 

[InnocentishBystander]

State-corporate media is all around us, all the time; the BBC is just one of the most meticulously whitewashed examples.

And comments like this is where democracy dies. It takes a very - particular - kind of reading of the BBC reporting on this story to come to this conclusion. Not unsurprising though, given the unrelenting assault on the BBC, from all sides, over the past few decades.

 

[Fluppeteer]

Nope, gave it a day, still angry. I was so pleased to have got rid of the Tories and some of their more obviously racist policies that I allowed myself to ignore the RIP act being pushed by Labour just before 9/11 (no, I don't think there was a connection, but I remember noting at the time that any rational debate about overreach by security services was going to have a hard time). I wish there were more than the two main parties to vote for. Well, there are, but they're a long way from power.

I don't know how to get parliament to watch the John Oliver episode on encryption. There's a bizarre position in both politics and the mainstream media that "oh, you can't have strong encryption while also putting in a back door now, but you clever techies will work it out if we legislate it; what do you mean you can't, obviously you're pro-terrorism and paedophilia". The arts degree mentality mentioned above is all very well for "but what if 1+1 wasn't 2?" , but a bit of out-of-the-box thinking doesn't work when reality is firmly inside the box.

I suspect the legal establishment in the UK really doesn't understand how the internet works, because it's done quite a bit of legislation that somehow is supposed to have contradictory effects on multinationals or small organisations that have no awareness that the UK exists; we don't have an empire any more, and legislating as though we did doesn't get us taken seriously.

I'm in the UK. I'd like to buy a new MacBook in a couple of months, so I'll be annoyed if Apple just leaves. But I really don't want them to roll over on this. With everything else going on in the world (and I'm more on the UK's side in much of it than usual) I can't imagine it getting as much attention and chance for public push-back as it should, but that doesn't reduce my blood pressure.

At least it means that Netflix prices going up in the UK doesn't even register on the list of things I'm angry about this week...

 

[scrimbul]

I have never understood the arguments for backdoors. Any serious bad actor will be using heavy ciphers or OTPs and not relying on cloud encryption. If you know (or have a very good idea) who these people are, there are many individually targetable ways of eavesdropping on their conversations that don’t need to terminally weaken the security on everyone else’s devices and leave them vulnerable to 3rd party hacking.

I am fine with the idea of security services watching spying on identified dangerous people who may directly or indirectly harm me or anyone else. I am not OK with blanket surveillance obtained through compromising the integrity of all personal devices leaving them open to criminal attacks.

MP written to.

Go a step further:

If you have either already left the market and bricked all devices on your way out, or you can't and the government is forcing ways for you to comply...

As stated below, you make a 'alternate version/iteration/fork' of the encryption, start moving UK government officials to it first and then promptly leak it to a Russian or Chinese or North Korean to a small extent to cause mass paranoia. Then apologize for the mix-up.

This will in one fell swoop make the original point and make all legislation involving the backdoor go away immediately. The fines for doing this will be a pittance compared to forcing the politicians to acknowledge basic encryption security culture.

 

[Fluppeteer]

And comments like this is where democracy dies. It takes a very - particular - kind of reading of the BBC reporting on this story to come to this conclusion. Not unsurprising though, given the unrelenting assault on the BBC, from all sides, over the past few decades.

The BBC does have some apparent biases (have a look at their coverage of trans issues), and their "we need to get a balanced opinion" mandate being interpreted as "the sensible one and whatever paranoid nutter we grabbed off the street" doesn't help. They're a lot less obviously biased than much of the press media in the UK, let alone US television news (which is shockingly inflammatory and misguided to a British visitor's ear), but they're certainly not perfect.

They do have some government pressure. A lot of the time though I think it's Hanlon's Razor - for all we complain about the political elite having arts degrees and a failure to understand technical issues, that's doubly so of most journalists. The good ones (I know some) try to reach out for expert guidance; the bad ones don't realise they're not being told glaring downsides with a proposal, so they jump on the old "think of the children" angle. (And if some people didn't spend so much time thinking about children, we wouldn't have some if these problems.) Bias is really hard to tell from "happens to disagree with you", and balance is hard to tell from "one of these people is actually delusional". It's not like attempts to balance coverage of Brexit (arguably the BBC did its best to report the downsides, unlike print media) went well.

BBC news journalists seem decreasingly able to spell check or use grammar (I saw "passer bys" on the BBC news site a few days ago, and heard the ghost of my English teacher screaming); I've no reason to believe they're any more diligent in research. But most journalists are under pressure to create copy that will get views, and sometimes that runs counter to gaining a proper understanding of an issue that's outside their normal area of understanding, even if it's important.

I thought, a decade or two ago, we'd started to get to an age where it was no longer "un-cool" to show intelligence or technical expertise. Then we had the Brexit "I think we've heard just about enough from experts" moment, and for all I'm on the side of the liberal Hollywood crowd in their stated support of diversity (yes, the irony of claiming the Academy has the high ground isn't lost on me) I still note that films delight in breaking immersion because the writers don't have the scientific acumen of a five year old (or sometimes because it's "funny"). So maybe I shouldn't be surprised that there are still chunks of society who think you can't trust the people who have spent a lifetime researching this stuff, and to whom all "scientists" are an amorphous mass of greedy paedophiles one step away from a terrorist plot. That opinion may be moderated by some rationality, but it doesn't make the press, politicians, or howling masses go out of their way to take the input of an expert being drowned out by enraged parents and the stock footage of tiny, tiny babies.

(TL;DR: love the BBC, but it's absolutely not perfect. But we have an uphill battle in getting the non-technical, less liberal parts of society to realise that there's even a problem here, let alone how serious it is.)

 

[LexaGrey]

I would call this an act of war against all the citizens of the planet. It is nothing less than attempted outright theft of every Apple owners (and let’s face it everyone else too) personal, financial, and medical information. This is the end of the slippery if you make a copy it doesn’t matter because bits can’t be owned slope.

I hope Trump immediately brings out the sanction/tariff hammer, if not considering putting a firewall around Great Britain to keep their slimy mitts off our stuff. If not he is nothing less than complicit in the privacy violation of men, women and children everywhere.

 

[entropy_wins]

On HN, there was discussion that pointed out Google's response was ambiguous:

"We at Google can't intercept the E2E on android" (paraphrasing). Perhaps Google can't , but other agencies can?

How would you punish non-compliance with a secret order without revealing the order?

Bruce Schneier had a blog article back in 2016 that Reddit's (pre-enshititfication) had died.

As pointed out since, the "PATRIOT" act made it illegal to publish the truth if the Govt doesn't want you too (i.e. the NSL), we are all in a serious state - we legally can't believe the Govt or the companies!!!!

I expect we will get a thorough frantic public debate (private deals) , threats(public and private) , but money will change hands - but the result will not in be in our favor....